11.27.2011

Thank you, everyone for all your kind thoughts and messages over the past few days. Schedules being all muddled, I will be going out for the funeral by myself.

Tom and Oreo will be on their own!

I'll be leaving here on Wednesday morning, flying to Las Vegas, and then riding up to Reno for the funeral on Friday, staying to visit for a bit and then coming home on Tuesday.

Thank goodness for my Kindle, smartphone, and plastic crochet hooks - I should have plenty of entertainment in very little luggage.

I think Nana's fabulous shopping spirit was with me yesterday - I needed to find a dress for the service and a new winter coat and managed to find both and some luggage that still rolls and isn't full of archaeological dirt. My new coat is bright pink - one of Nana's favorites.

Today I'm recovering from throwing up most of last night - I think I had a super-migraine-of-super-suckitude. Nausea is pretty typical for me, but not full-on projective vomiting. :( Hopefully this was just an unholy combination of stress, weather, and allergies and will not become a trend given how little good most meds do for me.

Fun fact: sitting on a folding stool in front of the toilet instead of kneeling is a lot friendlier to knees. Also, really glad we have two bathrooms now as Tom's parents were visiting this weekend...

I'm feeling a bit better now, sipping flat ginger ale and chicken broth and eating crackers. Oreo is very pleased about the crackers. Poor Tom has a cold, but is still taking very good care of me.

11.22.2011

The Dragonriders of Pern series is pretty much what, along with Star Trek and a few other bits of science fiction and fantasy, kept a very geeky, socially awkward, frequently bullied, and often bored teenaged Shoveling Ferret somewhat sane and alive and even happy through middle and early high school.

And I still have a huge geek crush on Robinton and sometimes wish Oreo was a fire lizard and would dearly love to visit Pern somewhere other than my imagination.

Thank you, Anne. You made a lot of people very happy, very thoughtful, and very entertained.

11.14.2011

My dog is a brat. You all knew this, but some of you like hearing about his brattiness and really, this was hilarious.
We just got up and first thing is always to take him out because he's getting older and the bladder, it gets full and hard to control after lots of sleep.

So, I toss on my jacket over my jammies and we go out the front door of the apartment, which leads to a sort of breezeway down the center of the building. One way goes to the parking lot, the other goes to the little patch of woods that our patio faces. We usually go toward the woods because it's more potty-friendly and closer.

So, he hops down off the cement to the woods, pees, and then makes a bee-line for our patio. And hops up on it. And goes to the sliding door. And then looks at me like I'm stupid.

And I (because I've given up seeming normal in public) say out loud: "I can't let you in that door, it's locked." And I try to coax him off the porch and back to the front door. Nuh-uh. Will not move.

Finally, I pinned his leash under the chair on the patio, went in the front door, and opened the sliding glass door. Oreo trotted right in and waited for me to take off his harness and give him his treat.

Last night I noticed that Laura was knitting a "nubia" for her sister, Mary. Given my past interest and work in Nubian studies, that stuck out a bit.

As near as I can seem to find in very brief Google and Ravelry browse, a "nubia" or "nubian" is a long scarf or shawl, wide enough to drape gently over the head and around the neck. This PDF from Ragged Soldier gives a modern example along with an historic illustration. They seem to have come into fashion in the late 19th Century and lasted through the early 20th. There are vintage/historic crochet and knitting patterns available as well for free and on eBay and as Kindle "books" on Amazon. (I strongly recommend searching the internet for patterns found for sale on Amazon, as they may simple be free patterns converted (or not) to Kindle file format.

The term seems to have no connection to Nubia the place or Nubians the people, despite both terms being used. I thought maybe it referred to Nubian goats, but they don't look much like fiber animals. Then I thought maybe the droopy ears and the scarf over the head looked sort of alike.

But, no, I finally found this:

Nubia. [From Latin nubes, a cloud] A knitted or crocheted scarf of Soft, fleecy material, worn about the head and neck. (Source)

So, no telling people their hand-knit or hand-crocheted scarves make them look like goats. Probably for the best.

In other news, the weather has cooled of here and my head and hands are making it felt. Hopefully will level out soon.
Also, the idiotic Personhood Amendment failed. So I will have no reason to use the phrase "pry my IUD out of my cold, dead uterus."

11.07.2011

I got my package of wonderful soap and shampoo bar samples from Chagrin Valley Soap today. Opening our mail box sent the most wonderful minty-herbal scent wafting out. I had taken Oreo over to the big central mail box thing for the apartment complex and actually wound up using the lovely scents to keep him moving.
He's a sucker for pretty smells. Loves chamomile and baby's breath especially. No idea why.

Anyway, my acne has flared up something fierce lately and I've been getting sores on my scalp again. Not fun. I seem to be getting the acne to ease off a little, but cycling through my shampoo/conditioners and even trying some new ones hasn't helped the head much.

I had tried Chagrin Valley shampoo bars several years ago in Chicago. I had fallen in love with LUSH products, but not so much some of the ingredients or the price tag. I had chin-length hair then. Between the water and the hair, I just could not make a go of them, even waiting several weeks, vinegar rinses, etc., etc. So I used up the bars to wash the rest of me and that was that. Then I found one of those old samples stashed in one of my dresser drawers (they smell wonderful, so they serve double duty as potpourri when not in active use). Used it to wash hair and face and it turned out very nicely. Several days in and I don't have that weird grungy-greasy feeling, haven't needed to do a vinegar rinse yet, and scalp sores seem to be improving. I'm guessing the change in water and maybe in hair length helped.

Anyway, Chagrin Valley has lovely, lovely stuff and it is incredibly reasonably priced and there are samples for nearly everything. So I grabbed whatever looked fun. They also have doggie shampoo bars. Tom discovered they're easier to use on Oreo than liquid shampoo when we borrowed one at a friends place. And Oreo is also having some skin itchies, so I'm hoping this will help.

I also scored a solid lotion bar. They're made of waxes and oils that are solid at room temperature but melt when massaged on skin. My hands have become more prone to eczema over the past year, so this is part of my plan of gradually having hand lotion available all over the apartment and in my purse as that seems to be what keeps the itchy, nasty pustules away, but I am sometimes too lazy to hunt for lotion.

So this is the soap I've been making little soap holders for. My first one seems to be just the right size. The one I started last night is going to be too big and will probably need to be frogged. And no, they aren't paying me to gush about their soap on the internets. I will post further info as I try things out.

Also, I have started using Astrid as a to-do list reminder thing. I really like it so far. It's free, web based and has an Android app. Easy interface. You can add in a social component as well.

11.05.2011

As I said last time, the past few weeks have been rough. I'm not sure if I've been in a CFS flare, if my thyroid meds need to be adjusted, or what, but most the past month I've been dizzy to the point of greying out for no apparent reason, almost throwing up if I bent over, and exhausted - if I read a book as opposed to a bright, active computer screen I start to doze off, no matter how much sleep I've had or how recently I had been asleep.

Not as much has gotten done around the apartment as some might expect. I've done the best I can while not making myself feel intensely worse, pass out, or throw up. It's made me feel horrible and guilty and useless to not be able to do as much as I'd like, but I've tried to do a little every day, even if it isn't all that noticeable and to be gentle and kind to myself, using some of the skills mindfulness has been teaching me.

We have finally gotten our insurance cards, so I can start seeing doctors again.

This past week has been devoted to coping with and recovering from a bladder/kidney infection. I wound up going to the ER Sunday night after attempts to tough it out from Friday onward failed. I think the last time I was in that much lasting pain was when I had my spinal tap. I was going to wait until Monday and find a clinic or something, but realized I simply couldn't make it through the night with the kind of flank pain I had.

Fortunately the ER staff were nice and I've had a week of Cipro and some pain meds that I've used sparingly. While I'm grateful for the Cipro, the side-effects blow goats. It seems to cause severe headaches (though that might have been the infection) that throb with the slightest movement. Far worse than the migraines I usually have. And no response to meds.
Gut pain from the infection was a problem to the point I had trouble sleeping until recently and I get a little flare of pain again now and again that could be my kidney or could just be a grumpy ovary or a weird back spasm.
Up until today I've had major problems brain wise - lots of forgetfulness, typos, silly errors, forgotten words, dropping things, running into things.

And I've started having major pain and stiffness when I get out of bed. In the arches of my feet and the sides of my hips. What the hell? Why those specific areas? I have no idea. Cipro can do weird things to tendons and muscles, so I'm hoping this will go away when I finish taking it and isn't some new, weird permutation of some part of my sickliness. I've had more generalized weakness/pain. I don't really know how else to describe it - usually in my shoulders and hips. Holding anything up above my head, even very light things is exhausting with the edge of hurt that usually means muscle failure is imminent. Really hoping that's a Cipro thing too, but I suspect it's more a thyroid thing.

Anyway, that's the health report. I've been working through a mindfulness workbook and working on acknowledging my feelings and states of being, including pain and sickness and discomfort and anger along with happiness and joy and anticipation and letting them be. That's part of the reason for the detail here. I also hope that others reading this and going through similar things won't feel quite so alone in it.

I have finally started crafting again. I've been doing some spinning, though I've been limited by that weird shoulder pain/weakness thing.

I ordered a bunch of soap samples from Chagrin Valley Soaps. I tried them in the past and couldn't quite get the hang of the shampoo bars and had trouble keeping the soap intact. I have shorter hair now and very different water, so I'm hoping for a better result. Also hoping the soaps might help with some of my random eczema and cystic acne and seborrheic dermatitis crap. My complexion is an absolute mess at the moment and it makes me sad in addition to being uncomfortable.

To help solve the problem of keeping the soap intact, I decided to crochet some soap sacks. Pop the bar in there, use it as a combo scrubby/soap, and then hang it to dry when finished. Sweet! Just finished the first one in about 45 minutes, using Cassiemarie's Soap Saver

In other news, Google + and Google Reader are pissing me off big time. I cannot find a way to share web pages directly to Google + via a share button browser plug-in the way Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious (and many others) can.
And the new Google Reader has apparently stopped working with the "note this in Reader" bookmarklet, which would also allow you to share webpages directly without having to open a new tab and cut and paste crap.
I am unamused.